Sneaky dancer

Privacy coin Monero (XMR) surged by as much as 40% in the past day, reaching as high as nearly $350 at one point early this morning. Volume spiked. XMR hasn't moved much since the end of March, holding to a tight range of $215-$230.

It seems the spring in XMR's step is under scrutiny. On-chain researcher ZachXBT identified a "suspicious transfer" of 3,520 BTC, worth about $330M, swapped into XMR, a relatively illiquid token. A sudden increase in demand caused the spike, ZachXBT said in post on X (CoinDesk).

XMR's trading volumes typically trend in the neighborhood of $50M in any given day, based on a rolling seven-day average. Over the past day, however, volume rose to $220M, CoinDesk noted. 

XMR has a total market capitalization of $4.97B, making it the 30th-largest digital asset, according to CoinGecko.

As for the rest of the majors, BTC is up slightly while ETH is merely flat; XRP is far outpacing each of them, up 7% in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, glancing over at the shallower end of the pool, we see layer-1 Casper Network's native CSPR surging by 56% in the past day. CSPR has a market cap of about $200M, making it the 285th-largest token. The rally, per Coinspeaker, comes ahead of a long-awaited Casper upgrade set for May 6.

The crypto market at large has momentum on its side, going back to the early part of last week. However, the total market capitalization ($3.1 trillion) is actually down slightly (-0.3%) since this time yesterday.

Something seems just a little off but what? The most glaring red splotch we spotted belonged to Artificial Superintelligence Alliance. The amalgamated AI project's native FET fell 5.4% in the past 24 hours as of 8:11 a.m. (EST), per CoinGecko. FET has a total market cap of almost $2B, making it the 63rd-largest coin.

Keep in mind "AI coins" and "AI agents" are two crypto sub-categories getting a gush of affection of late.

FET counts as the largest AI-agent-related token, followed by Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) and ai16z (AI16Z). Each of these latter two tokens has been soaring in the past week. VIRTUAL's per-coin spot price since last Monday has more than doubled to $1.24. AI16Z is up more than 90% in that same span. The total market cap for all AI agent coins collectively is now nearly $6B.

And yet ... the AI agents category is down a smidgen (-0.1%) since this time yesterday, according to CoinGecko.

Twenty One Capital wants to become a Bitcoin-hoarding superpower. Traders are all in.

Last Wednesday, Cantor Equity Partners, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), announced it agreed to merge with Twenty One, a firm backed by Tether Holdings, its affiliate Bitfinex, and SoftBank Group. As if shot out of a cannon, the Cantor SPAC's shares soared nearly 200% in only a couple of days. The publicly traded vehicle already has a market capitalization of $12B (on a fully diluted basis), or roughly three times the estimated value of the BTC it says it eventually intends to hold.

Investors have driven up the share prices of publicly-traded companies acquiring cryptos, Bloomberg explains, pointing to Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which owns more than $50B worth of BTC.

It's also worth noting that shares of Upexi rocketed up 600% after the company said it was privately raising $100M to amass  Solana.

The proposed Cantor deal includes a convertible debt offering after its closing. Some of Strategy's past BTC purchases have been funded via the sale of convertible debt and preferred shares.

Appetite for the Cantor SPAC “speaks to the demand for these proxy investment vehicles,” KBW analyst Bill Papanastasiou told Bloomberg.

Retail and institutional traders alike spent the latter part of last week snapping up shares of the Cantor-sponsored speculative blank check company on the forward-looking view that it'll be poised to be able to buy BTC in accretive fashion, Papanastasiou said. For speculators, essentially, Papanastasiou added, "it's like betting on the fastest horse for BTC exposure."